


Familiar taste of poison

by Fating



Category: Sixx:A.M.
Genre: Angst, Based on a Halestorm song, Bipolar Disorder, Eating Disorders, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29362713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fating/pseuds/Fating
Summary: Underneath my skinHolding on toThe sweet escapeIs always laced with aFamiliar tasteOf poisonInspired by "Familiar Taste of Poison" by Halestorm
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Familiar taste of poison

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Relief](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23239891) by [Livdonna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Livdonna/pseuds/Livdonna). 



> A big thank to Livdonna for her incredible stories ( Relief and You come to the right place) that inspired me to do this. Also a big thanks to her for being an amazing friend <3  
> There will be SPOILER from "Relief" and "You Come To The Right Place" by Livdonna so if you don't want them, check those stories first!  
> WARNINGS!!!!!!!!!  
> ***Suicidal thoughts, self-harm, metion of eating disorder behaviors, PTSD, alcohol as coping mechanism***

**_"Drink the wine, my darling" you said_ ** **_  
"Take your time, and consume all of it"_ **

_DJ_

“C’mon DJ… you know it’s the only way to get through this night. If you don’t take it, the nightmares will haunt you, you have to visit James tomorrow how can you do it if you’re like this?”

The voice in my head is so convincing, so loud and scary and it’s getting harder and harder to resist. I can’t help but constantly eyeing all the little liquor bottles under my bed…

It’s late at night and I know that if I go to sleep I’ll have a nightmare… it’s not like the alcohol helps that much, but without it it’s even scarier.

Better be safe than sorry.

Better be drunk than tormented by my own fucked up memories.

I tried so hard to not give in… But I can’t… My head is pounding as much as my heart, I’m sweating but also I have the chills. I know that I need it.

**_“HE’S DEAD, HE’S FUCKING DEAD, IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN, IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN AND YOU CAN’T STOP IT, YOU CAN’T CONTROL IT. IT WILL HAUNT YOU FOREVER, YOU WILL LOSE HIM AGAIN!”_ **

That’s what my mind always repeats me, over and over. Sometimes it stops but then gets back again with more force, it makes me wish to shut everything off, sometimes I think alcohol does that. And fuck if I need that.

_“You’re a fucking coward, you can’t even deal with this like a normal person would.”_

I’m pathetic because I surrender. I take one bottle and I start to drink.

**_The promises_ ** **_  
Were spoiled before they left your lips_ **

“I promise you Nikki, I’m not drinking to deal with all of this… well maybe I’ve done it sometimes in the past but now I’ll cut it out… I know how dangerous it can be to use it as a coping mechanism.”

Lies. All lies that I told and promises that were broken as soon as the words left my mouth.

Now I’m here, hidden in a corner of the studio, drinking the same bottles I swore to throw away. I want to scream, I want to cry because everything is too much and I start to feel like I’m trapped in my mind, incapable of controlling my worry and fear.

I feel weak, pathetic, whiney. I’m still scared, even if things are better now. I’m still terrified because I feel like we are all on a tiny rope that could snap at any moment, making us fall down again.

It doesn’t matter how much time has passed, I can’t get out some imagines off my mind.

_The Chinese food_ , the first time I started to understand something was wrong but I was too naïve to know better.

_The run under the rain_ , that’s when my gut feeling kept telling me to talk to someone, but I ignored that because I was such a pussy to be too scared to burst my little bubble of fake happiness.

_The intervention_ , there I really thought things were solved, I fooled myself that everything could be back to normal. I was so fucking wrong. He kept lying and pretending and things got so much worse.

_The release party,_ here all my hopes were crushed, here I understood the truth, I’ve heard it with my ears and almost seen it with my eyes. That was the day I almost lost my friendship with James, it was the day I knew I’d have lost him forever. He was doomed unless he asked for help.

_That damn night,_ it was when I thought everything was over, it’s when a part of me almost died with him. I think that’s the image that haunts me the most, seeing him laying motionless on the floor, his pulse so weak and fucking blood in the toilet.

Now I think I’ll also add that night where I had to hold James down to prevent him to hurt himself, I felt so bad like a fucking piece of shit but I was so terrified of losing him… I couldn’t take any chance. I already lost him once.

All of them make my heart feel like his about to explode, I can’t remember where I am or what’s going on in the real world because I’m sucked into my own twisted reality. I can’t breathe, I keep tossing and turning, everything feels like it’s about to crushing and burn.

That’s the reality I’m living now, the one I’m getting used to.

**_“YOU SHOULD HAVE TALKED SOONER, IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT! YOU WERE SO SELFISH THAT YOU WANTED TO KEEP YOUR CALM LITTLE BUBBLE INSTEAD OF SPEAKING ABOUT IT WITH SOMEBODY AND LOOKED WHERE IT LED YOU!”_ **

That’s my biggest regret, the one who torments me all the time, the one who make me feel so guilty when I see James struggling. It’s the constant reminder that I should have done something sooner, probably I could have saved James.

I’m pathetic because I keep not telling things. I take another bottle and I start to drink again.

**_Underneath my skin_ ** **_  
Holding on to  
The sweet escape  
Is always laced with a  
Familiar taste  
Of poison_ **

_James_

_“I’m in love with all the things I know I should resist”._

I resonate with this sentence so much because it’s the truth for me, in my life I’ve always tried to self-destruct myself: alcohol, cigarette, reckless action, anger outburst and an eating disorder. I did anything in my power to destroy me, delete my presence, myself, my body from this Earth.

But it always resisted and I feel fucking angry because it was not supposed to! It shouldn’t have won.

Sometimes I can feel the discomfort right under or above my skin, it feels like tiny little bugs crawling all over me, I get this itchy feeling and I just want to get out my skin and my body, I feel like it’s a prison who does nothing but hurt me, it holds all those horrible actions and feeling.

I would be free from the pain, if only I could get rid of this body.

Once the itch was so bad I started to scratch myself, leaving cuts all over my arms and chest. It hurt so bad and when I looked myself in the mirror I felt like a war prisoner, tortured, hurt, beaten down.

But when I was doing it, I didn’t feel pain, when I kept starching my skin opening it wide I felt relief, from all the emotions festering in me. It was just like when I purged, when I exercised until I hurt myself, when I drank… there was always some pain but also there was peace.

I feel awful because I just keep self-destroying with alcohol first, then smoke, then the ED, and now I’m just in this weird place where I still hurt myself in weird different ways, mostly related to my body dysmorphia, it’s like I can’t give a break to myself and that makes me feel even worse.

It’s a vicious cycle of shame and guilt which ends up with me feeling like shit and doing something bad to myself. Every time I engage into something like that it’s like I can sense that familiar taste of poison even if I felt “relief” first.

It’s an escape but it’s also a prison, it’s poison but an antidote too.

****

**_I tell myself_ ** **_  
That you're no good for me  
I wish you well (wish you well)  
But desire never leaves  
  
_ **

_DJ_

_“Maybe people could ask me why did I keep doing heroin, and yeah at first I didn’t know how much it was hurting me… but then I died for two minutes. So Nikki, why the hell did you keep doing it? Well, at the beginning you don’t realize how much something is hurting you but when you do it, it feels like it’s too late to stop now… it hurts you but it feels like the only option…”_

Nikki’s words hit me more than ever at this moment… because I just feel like that. I know alcohol it’s not the solution, I know it barely does something against the memories and the nightmare.

But I need it, I can’t do it without it.

At first it was because I felt like it was better not risking it… how was I going to sit there with James during visits and not flipping out? How was I going to sleep if every night nightmares tormented me?

I tried to cut it out… I even managed to do that but it always seems that something bad happens and I find myself going back to it. I just want to visit James and enjoy those hours, I miss him so fucking much and when I have the chance to see him I have to deal with the constant worry of losing him? That sounds fucking unfair to me.

It’s unfair that I have to hide in a bathroom and drink just to stay in the present, without drifting in my fucked up reality. It’s wrong that I have to drink just to be able to sleep… but still I get the nightmares.

And then there are the cravings… the ones that make your head feel like a loud, flashy rave, that makes your nausea so strong you wish to just puke already... I have even shaky hands sometimes and it really makes me feel like a mess.

It’s usually there that my brain starts to attack me, that reminds me how much I need to drink, how it is the only solution with everything I’m going through.

_“C’mon DJ, you know if you drink you won’t feel this way… you can’t take the risk… how can you take care of James feeling like that?_

It torments me until I give in. Sometimes I’m able to resist and go on with my life, but that doesn’t mean that the desire leaves, it stays there and I fight it until I eventually surrender.

It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself that it is no good for me, it will always find a way to come back.

Slowly I’m starting to understand that it’s not helping me anymore, but what scares me the most is that I’m not scared to surrender, I’m not scared of getting potentially ruined by it. ** _  
  
_**

****

**_I could fight this 'til the end  
But maybe I don't wanna win_ **

_James_

Recovery is fucking hell.

It’s so hard to have to deal with your feelings 24/7, my head is always so loud and the voices go on and on making difficult even just existing. They say it’s normal, that’s what a monster does when it understands you’re killing him but it doesn’t make it any easier, that doesn’t fix all the thoughts and the sensations that I have.

It feels like hell because everything blends into a lethal cocktail. First we have the body dysmorphia who kicks my ass, making me either hyper fixed on every inch of my skin or will make me cover in layers, hiding from everybody, or when he gets very severe I get those weird sensations like bugs are all over me. Then we have the eating disorder who basically it’s body dysmorphia best friend and I get all the wonderful feelings of :

“ _You don’t deserve to eat.”_

_“You can’t eat.”_

_“Fuck James we need to purge.”_

_“Forget what they said we need to exercise.”_

_“We can’t deal with having breakfast/snack/lunch/dinner now.”_

And the general obsessing over food, that sensation of impending doom whenever I have to put something into my body, sometimes even just fucking water!

Then last but not least we have the bipolar disorder. I feel out of control all the time, I never know if I’m going to lay on the bed for hours, wishing I was dead or running around getting angry at the slightest thing. Up and down, all the damn time! I go from 0 to 100 and then to 100 to 0 in a blink of an eye, it feels like a torture.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s really worth it, if enduring everything my disorders and my brain throws at me it’s going to make things better. It hurts like hell now, the more time passes the worst it seems sometimes, and yeah recovery is slow and long but fuck why do I have to feel this shitty every time?

“You can fight this James… you can make it!”

Yeah maybe I can, but sometimes I wonder why I should fight that hard just for pain. Especially during my lows this thought gets sucked in my head and I can’t help but think what would happen if I just give up.

I know I could easily go back to all my bad habits and behaviors, from the eating disorders to the drinking. I won’t have to face problems again but I can keep avoiding them like I would, but also I know that won’t help.

What’s scares me the most is not only that I could go back to them.

_It’s that maybe I want that to happen, deep down._

****

**_I don't wanna be saved_ **

_“You don’t deserve it.”_

That’s what my brain says to me over and over. I don’t deserve love, nurturance, help, understanding, happiness, to feel my emotions, to eat… I basically don’t deserve anything beside from pain and sadness, guilt and shame.

It’s exhausting and frustrating but it’s also my routine at this point, I can’t think any less different about myself, nothing will change my mind about that no matter how hard I try.

Well it’s not like I try to do it, actually I don’t try at all because it almost feels comfortable, in a fucked up way. I’ve been thinking like this for as long as I remember so change that sounds scared as hell. Fuck, how wrong does that sound?! I’m a nut case at this point.

I’ve hurt so many people in the past, I ruined my marriage and various of my relationships, I almost killed myself and traumatized DJ in the process… I’m a fucking monster that’s why I think I don’t deserve love and comfort.

Still DJ and Nikki are always there for me always ready to hear and comfort me, it feels so wrong and weird because they are not supposed to do that! They shouldn’t be so nice to me, I’m bad I deserve all of this! Why are they giving me love?!

“ _I don't wanna be saved”_

That’s what I was thinking during my lowest point with my ED.

I was ready to die, I was ready to be left alone and face consequences, I’ve done _everything_ to my body but I’m still here and it feels just impossible.

I’ve put so much effort into disappearing but I’m still here.

“ _You don't deserve to be saved”_

That’s also what my depression tells me, when I’m stuck in my bed and all the thoughts are the same horrible ones… When I feel like hurting myself or worse that’s what I hear on repeat. It got even harder since I’ve been in recovery because I’m fighting against it, so it gets stronger every time.

“ _I don't wanna be saved.”_ My brain screams at me.

Yet there’s this tiny part of me growing and growing who wants to be saved.

**_I don't wanna be sober_ **

_DJ_

Yeah I fucking hate being sober sometimes, I can’t stand that I decided to cut it out just for today because everything feels ten time worse. Tonight (or was it morning, I have no idea) I woke up for a terrible nightmare, it made my body shake and to scream because it was so haunting and I couldn’t do anything just take all the horrible sensations. I was so disoriented that for a few minutes I even forgot what year was it!

What the hell is wrong with me? See why being sober fucking sucks!

Why do I have to deal with all of this, every single day? Why can’t I have just five minutes of silence in my head? Sometimes things get so overwhelming that I disconnect… I dissociated because it’s like my brain can’t take anymore. I don’t have any memories, just peace and I don’t remember anything… it feels like somebody turned off my brain and when it went back, hours were passed.

I’m not going to lie it feels nice to feel nothing but also it’s creepy as hell, because sure I’m not tormented but still I don’t have control, I have no idea what could happen in that time. That’s why alcohol is my solution: it calms me down while I still have the control.

But of course I had to be a hero and decide to cut it cold turkey, now I’m paying all the consequences.

I know why I did this, I mean I’ve always been a drinker but I’ve done it to avoid my problems and there’s a part of me who’s actually scared that all of this could go out of control. But like I’m aware and I’m being careful… is there really a problem here? It’s not like I’m drinking too much… I just need it to not freak out sometimes… well most of the time.

I’m following my rational part but I’m feeling like I’m already regretting this: the headache, the constant anxiety, my upset stomach and that horrible feeling that you get after having a nightmare but can’t remember what you have seen are already making me give everything up.

It’s a battle with myself.

_“You can’t solve all your problems with this and it can have horrible consequences.”_

_“But I want peace and this is a solution, I don’t want to be sober.”_

**_And I won't wake up  
No, not this time_ **

_DJ_

“Hey buddy… welcome back!”

_* “Why you always look so fragile James? Why am I so scared that something bad is going to happen?”*_

It should get better but instead it gets worse every time and I can’t stand it! What are we going to become? Will we ever get better?

Sometimes I feel like we are in a never ending nightmare.

But this time it’s scarier than my usual ones because it seems like I won’t wake up from this one.

_It will be okay DJ, no matter how much you are scared. You will wake up._

_James_

“Hey DJ… I missed you.”

_*"You look so tired and scared… What’s going on with you buddy?”*_

Sometimes I wonder will our lies destroy me and DJ like they almost did with me once? Or will we be able to go back to who we were.

Because I’m scared I won’t wake up this time.

_No no James, you will. You want that, deep down._

****


End file.
